Welcome back. We spoke earlier about the fractured years. The years when India's weaknesses contributed to a great deal of introspection and lead to policies that promised a new beginning. The next phase that I'll talk about is the phase which I describe as the Idea of Power, 1971 to 1989. This was most dramatically illustrated by the rise of Indira Gandhi. Indira Gandhi is an interesting and a very controversial figure in Indian politics. But was perhaps the most formidable political leader of her generation. She was also one of the world's first woman prime ministers. And she was Nehru's daughter. She had a slow start with having little experience in the kind of political Machiavellian setup of the Congress party. But soon enough, she was in command. She was someone who centralised power, had an authoritarian streak, but demonstrated great courage in the face of adversity. It was in during this phase that India and India's foreign policy began to recognise in reality the importance of power. And it was in Indira Gandhi who exemplified that. If you look at her Bangladesh policy, it's a textbook case of how India was able to synergise with its strengths, with its instruments of power from intelligence to the military, to diplomacy in the pursuit of one goal, to ensure that Bangladesh was created. That Bangladesh was created where East Pakistan stood. Of course, there was an East Pakistani freedom movement led by the Mukti Bahini and the great leader Sheikh Mujib. But without India's aid assistance and diplomacy, Bangladesh may have remained a Utopian goal for the Awami League. It was Indira Gandhi and her close advisors who were able to execute this great diplomacy. Even though the United States had sent the seventh fleet and had the regime of Nixon and Kissinger as his Secretary of State had, were deeply against Indira Gandhi. But Indira Gandhi had the support of the Soviet Union. Not unflinching but had the support and was able to dismember Pakistan, create a new state of Bangladesh. Largely because of Pakistan's own hauls but it also demonstrated to the world that India had arrived on the world's stage. Not as an articulator of merely ideas but as, as a country which could, through its power, achieve clear goals, as was in the creation of Bangladesh. India, under Indira Gandhi, again did something against all odds and in the face of world opinion. India tested nuclear weapons and refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Again, in writing wide spread condemnation, including sanctions from the United States and much of the West. And India did not of course conduct test after that, but it demonstrated that in Western and scientific technology. To an extent where it could even as what was seen as a weak third world country have its own atomic bombs. During this phase, India also annexed the state of Sikkim which had a protectorate like relationship but which, where there's popular opinion in favour of that annexation. Again, Indira Gandhi demonstrated realpolitik, Machiavellian realpolitik with tremendous finesse. Non-alignment had been the central pillar of India's foreign policy through all these years, through good times and bad times. But here again, Indira Gandhi did not have, enter into a military alliance, but entered into a special relationship. With the Soviet Union through the signing of the Industrial Treaty. But domestically also the semi-socialistic policies that have prevailed from '47 to, to the, to the '70s were consolidated even further by the nationalisation of banks. And to other, kind of, deeply socialist majors, which in some ways really toppled the enterprise. And the ability of Indian entrepreneurs to do well in what became a very closed economy. But this was Indira Gandhi, and Indira Gandhi's view of power, which was completely different, you might say, from her own father's view of power. Her father was driven by idealism and was much more democratic than even his contemporaries in the congress party. To a point that he even wrote a newspaper article under a pseudonym suggesting that Nehru, Nehru himself writing an article under the pseudonym warning the people that Nehru has an authoritarian streak and he needs to be kept in check. Indira Gandhi, however, did not just have an authoritarian streak. She was an authoritarian person by temperament. And she's ruled India through a greatly centralised political machinery. She was India's own Iron Lady.